MAKING OF A JOURNALIST

                  There are two facets of every story in the World. One is the supportive paradigm and the other is obviously the critical opposition. Journalism is an arena which involves putting up multiple prioritizations and adjusting and changing with trending times. It involves calling a spade or camouflaging the naked Truth. So, a journalist needs to be of sound mind and an equally rigid and honest moral. It is often said that a journalist changes for the sake of his story or coverage to gain leverage in the public and personal domain but for how long can you blame the educated sophomores for their work and the difficulties their profession darts out?

                   India has a reputed history of producing thought-provoking journalist right from Pre-British era. Journalist hold a pivotal role symbolizing “Been there, seen that syndrome”! In all space and time era’s. A detailed historic account, spearheading a movement or just acting as a mere catalyst, media has a staggering importance and presence in the world history. Records show that, when Freedom Struggle Movements ensued, newspapers or vartapatra were read out at community cornerstones to accelerate the feeling of fight to gain freedom. Many such detailed descriptions include Lokmanya Tilak starting Kesri Periodicals and Hitler using propaganda theories to gain goodwill among the anti-semantic crowds.

                             So, in nutshell, a journalist has to be tenacious, mentally reciprocative and vigilant and should follow a specific set of guidelines or a charter to keep him under the so called “Righteous path. Because, Journalism as a profession is a social duty to find the truth and deliver it to the correct sources and society. So, a journalist’s sources and his general body of knowledge stems from his experience, practical application and keen pursuit of truth. There exist books to re-inforce the ethics and morality in gathering news, regulating bodies to censor the flow of information and at the end of the chart exist audiences. Audience reception, rejection and response are the 3R’s that affect the validity of news. So, maintaining credibility in spite of being a part of the social start involving politics, society, global world and juggle the pressure is not an easy feat. So, Journalists should be respected and valued, as this will lead to them bringing a sense of credibility and responsibility to their news. On the prima facie, victimization can occur with audiences too. Many-a times news bodies may place over due and complacent faith on their sources or self-virtuously proclaim their credibility with no tamper-proof methods. So, these gate-keepers need to be humble in their outlook, sophisticated in their tasks and draw a thin line between media victimization to ensure existence of a healthy and well-informed world.

               So, let’s discuss about one of the reputed journalist and her life and try to understand the highs and lows of the profession in concise.

Barkha Dutt was born in Delhi to a family of affable journalists and army men and lost her Mother at a very young age. All these factors cocooned her into taking a deep interest in the media field and the lady has specified that too.

                   She pursued her journalism and then joined NDTV news and climbed the success ladder in brief no time owing to her extensive knowledge and practical approach. She became a well known personality when she went onto extensively cover the Kargil War. But later on she generated a lot of flak for her coverage of the 26/11 Mumbai blasts wherein she over did it with footage coverage as per some reports. Defending her forte via NDTV she lashed out that, during the attack, situation was very tense and no one was expecting any specified outcome and it was natural for media to restrict itself till a certain point and then cover the news. According to her many people had lauded her bravery and skills for the same whereas certain section had created a lot of negative scribe. But later on she incredulously appeared in a 2G scam of lobbying and the case was even called as “Radia gate” in symbolization to her involvement in the case along with the likes of Nira Radia and others.

So we can figure out how compressing and tepid the media industry is and how the quote, survival of the wittiest holds true.